Strategies for fair group assignments and coopera

The educator-author describes a method that he employs to aleviate perceived anxiety among middle school students about where to sit, what to do, how and when to respond etc in a new classro... See More

The educator-author describes a method that he employs to aleviate perceived anxiety among middle school students about where to sit, what to do, how and when to respond etc in a new classroom at the beginning of a school year. The educator devised these strategies because although he though he dealt fairly with all students in the classroom in all situations, some student evaluations found him to be unfair. You easily could adapt these ' random' strategies to a classroom and then revise and adjust as the school year and the classroom learning environment develops. The strategies are simple but appear to be quiet effective. Pre-service teachers, those student teaching and managing a class for the first time, likely will pick up some pointers based on real classroom experience. You are encouraged to review, modify, and adapt to make these random (or perhaps not so random) strategies a foundation for a new school year or a new group of students.